Opposable Thumbs —

Will the Wii U win u back?

Tell us what you want out of Nintendo's next console.

After about a decade of relative dominance with the NES and Super NES, followed by a decade of relative also-ran status with the Nintendo 64 and GameCube, Nintendo shocked the gaming world with the stratospheric success of the Wii. With a rock-bottom price, innovative new motion-sensitive controller, and the easy-to-understand, everyman appeal of games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit, the system went on to ship nearly 100 million units worldwide. But for its wide commercial success, many long-time gamers quickly grew disillusioned with the Wii, thanks to underpowered hardware that couldn't handle HD graphics and a software library that came to be dominated by nearly skill-free, "waggle-the-controller" mini-game collections.

With the Wii U, Nintendo seems to be trying to recapture the original Wii's sales magic while at the same time mollifying some of the lifelong gamers disillusioned by its predecessor. Instead of the motion-sensitive remote, the new control gimmick is a touchscreen tablet controller that can be used to play games while the TV is otherwise occupied, or to present secret information to only one player during multiplayer games. For more traditional gamers, the company is stressing the system's long-overdue HD graphics support, greater support for downloadable games, an Xbox 360-style controller option, and Wii U conversions for titles ranging from Batman: Arkham City to the upcoming Aliens: Colonial Marines.

On Thursday, Nintendo seems set to finally nail down the details of the promised "holiday season" launch and price point for the Wii U at a New York press event, officially ushering in the "next generation" of home game consoles. The announcement will likely also include the final details of the system's hardware specifications and which titles we can expect during the months-long "launch window." (We'll be there to liveblog the proceedings.)

Before that big announcement, we're asking you, Ars readers, what would it take to get you interested in purchasing the Wii U? Is there a certain price point where the system goes from "impulse buy" to "think about it" to "forget it"? Is there a certain company or game series whose appearance on the system would finally prove to you that Nintendo has resolved its historically bad relations with many third-party publishers? Would more openness to independent developers or player-created content win you over? Maybe Nintendo never lost your support, or perhaps there's nothing you can picture them doing that will win you back.

Whatever the case, leave your thoughts in the comments below, and we'll choose some of the best to feature here ahead of Nintendo's big announcement on Thursday.

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

210 Reader Comments

While it doesn't seem to be blowing anyone out of the water with the tablet innovation, I have to admit that I have been dreaming about "asynchronous multiplayer" since I was about 8 years old. And considering I mostly missed out on the Wii, I will almost definitely be picking this console up at some point next year - even if only to play through Skyward Sword and then a couple new Wii U titles.

I'm already interested. As long as they have their first-party titles (which they will), I'm interested in buying it.

I have every console Nintendo ever released here in the EU including the headache inducer Virtual Boy. The only exemption is the Wii, I skipped it due to the lack of HD and 3rd party support from major publishers. But I will definitely buy the new console since they have fixed most of the Wii's shortcomings and with the added bonus of backwards compatibility I can play 2-3 Wii titles that are must (last Story, Xenoblade, Zelda)

Looking at my Wii, I feel current generation motion controls are not that interesting. The only attractive thing Nintendo is putting i to this console seems to be the possibility of transferring the image to the controller. Meanwhile, we have new Kinect, Occulus Rift, awesome tablets brewing, ever improving PC graphics and resolution. The current gen, which the Wii U will belong to, might get real old real fast.

I really want to like the Wii U, because some of Nintendo's games are good, but unless it ends up with a low price tag (which I doubt), I fear going into the Wii trap once more, and spend money on something I will not use, and which will look like a museum piece a few years down the road.

(And if I was a developer, I think I'd not want to place my career in Nintendoland either)

but unless it ends up with a low price tag (which I doubt), I fear going into the Wii trap once more, and spend money on something I will not use, and which will look like a museum piece a few years down the road

For something that was allegedly never used by owners, it took a heck of a long time for it to acheive a reasonable pre-owned/2nd hand cost.

Price Point and games, I was born in 1980 so I grew up with Nintendo, they hold a special place in my heart. The Wii lost me after a couple years to Xbox and Sony, I'll gladly make the jump back though if they have a couple decent launch games and a good price point (200 to 300) with the higher price only being an option if the games REALLY look good.

Downloadable games. XBOX has an incredible selection of downloadable games while Sony has consistently backed innovative games and new IPs. Nintendo is fast growing stale relying on the same franchises again and again.

I've owned nearly every Nintendo system since the NES. I was one of those very excited about the Wii when it was first released and purchased it right away. I was extremely disappointed with the lack of games the first year! Didn't it take almost 2 years to get a solid new Mario release??

Then comes the 3DS which I was very impressed with. Same old story. Great system with nifty new features and no games to use them on.

Wii U needs to have a series of big name games to either launch with, or to be released shortly.

My second would be an easier way to connect with friends. XBox Live is so simple to get up and running and playing games with my friends. It's just not that easy with Nintendo products.

Im certainly interested as a long time Nintendo fan!1. You know that you will get the usual quality in 1St party games2. They now have a new online strategy (revealed on Thur)3. Major 3rd party support is incoming

If they can make some good uses of the Tablet and the motion controls i cant see why it shouldn't be a success. If nint can steal a few quality devs from iPad games makers and put them to use on smaller downloadable games for the tab itself that would be a bonus!

The first party titles have already sold me. I don't care if it's bleeding edge or not. Unless the others go nuts with memory, I could see it running most of the same games at 720p that they do at 1080p.

I'll be content with that unless the differences are greater. I might get a PS4 but I just plain hate the Xbox.

I was given a 360+Kinect the Christmas before last and I was a little crushed inside that my sister who advised on the purchase thought I would prefer the 'grown up' games for the XBox rather than Mario for the Wii. Anyway. I actually think the Kinect control system is pretty good and think it's cool that I don't need a controller to use the system, even if it does need a LOT of space. I still enjoy Kinect Sports and Kinect Adventures. I haven't really had time to get into Dance Central or any other games really (Kinect-enabled or otherwise. Neither have I got round to getting Microsoft points for buying LIVE arcade games).

I think it's a shame the Wii won't have the Kinect-style hands-free controls and I don't think I really care all that much about the tablet controller, but having had both the XBox and 360, there have been few games to engage me like Ocarina of Time or Mario 64, and that's what I really want in a games system, along with the option to play party games with my friends.

As a core gamer, the Wii U does not interest me at all. But, as a father, the possibility exists that I will be buying one within a few years. The family gaming possibilities of the PS3 (Rayman, LBP, Ratchet & Clank) are all but expended at this point.

The tablet controller gimmick will attract some, but like the Wii it won't hold the core gamers long. What you need to have a successful console in the long-term is a consistently strong games library. Wii U will have a strong stable of first party games, the question is will third party developers consistently make good games that take advantage of the unique capabilities of the console. If the Wii U primarily gets ports from the Xbox/PS consoles then the Wii U is DOA.

Unlikely. The Wii was my first Nintendo console, and while I enjoyed Wii Sports with friends, I discovered I really didn't enjoy most of Nintendo's games. Just too cloyingly cutesy.

My two favorite games on the Wii wound up being third-party games built specifically for the Wii - Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands and Dead Space: Extraction. Smart games that gave me experiences I couldn't have gotten on any other platform, and not watered-down ports. Sadly, I believe sales for both games tanked.

I may be one of the only people I personally know who enjoyed this last generation of consoles less than the previous generations of consoles (back to the NES). I find that, even now, I enjoy the older games more. I also enjoy PC games more.

For me, I'm sticking with the PC and the older console games I've amassed but not yet played.

Every gaming platform that succeeds or fails can be boiled down to that question; were the games available for it compelling enough to warrant acquiring one?

The GameCube failed because Super Mario Sunshine was too much of a weird departure for most people (even though it was a very fun game.) Windwaker came too late to convince people to go buy a GameCube to play it, and again was a departure that was off putting to some fans (though it rightly deserves its place as a break through in not just Zelda but gaming history.)

The Wii succeeded because people found Wii Sports compelling. Bottom line. Having compelling launch titles is the most important thing. To some degree it can be "fixed" later, but if the initial impression is "There's no good games for X." then that tends to stick without a huge jolt to break it loose.

Will the Wii U have launch titles that are compelling? That's the only question that matters right now.

It'll need some killer apps that we haven't seen yet to get me to buy in. So far, all I'm seeing is a Wii with better graphics. I've had a Wii for the last 4 or 5 years or so and I'd be surprised if it has seen a cumulative total of 100 hrs of play time on it. My biggest gripe is the lack of a real traditional controller that doesn't need to be tethered to the Wii remote. Having that tether on the Classic controller is, to me, so annoying that I cannot tolerate it for very long. Also, am I alone in thinking that the buttons on the classic controller never felt quite right compared to, say, the SNES controller that it's vaguely modeled upon? To me, the buttons and d-pad feel too small and the d-pad squishy and not as responsive as it should be. Honestly, it reminds me of a cheap third party controller from the SNES days.

And I don't expect my complaints about the controller to change since Wii U is re-using the exact same Wii controllers with the addition of support for the new gamepad thingy, of which you can only use one at a time. Lame. Last thing I want is to be fighting with the kids, or the kids fighting amongst themselves, over who gets to use the fancy new gamepad and who gets the old junk. My kids are 2 and 5 years old and are incapable of rational argument. The older one will share when asked, but the arguments start when the younger one won't give up her turn. She's in the "that's mine!" phase right now. That is a can of worms I don't even want to think about bringing into my house unless Nintendo can make something that is really truly compelling. So far, I haven't seen it.

No. Not a chance I'm afraid. I'm one of the suckers who was standing outside GAME at 5am on the launch day of the original Wii, waiting in line for my new console, extra Wiimote, handful of games...

That was December 2006. Within six months, the novelty had worn off, and none of the games I owned had enough pull to make me want to go back and finish/restart them.

When faced with powering on my 360 or Wii, the Xbox wins every time. Not due to the graphics, but the games simply draw you in better. Waggle waggle repeat was not what I thought I was signing up for when I stood in the rain outside GAME that day.

Count me in as a buyer. My xbox36 and ps3 games collect dust. Having grown up purely on Nintendo and now adult of three kids, Nintendo's titles make for perfect bonding tools for me and my little guys. At age 33, my imagination isn't what it used to be, and I would prefer to do work on my house or business. (It's sad that it's come that!). I do enjoy booting up Mario or Donkey Kong and playing with the kids. Having the latest graphics is a definite incentive to keep me in the Nintendo loop. I don't foresee the system being terribly expensive, so for me the purchase will be a no brainer.

I'm completely uninterested until about four years from now, at which time I'll throw sense out the window in favor of spending $50 plus the cost of the console at the time to sate my Zelda addiction for another five years.

I have nothing against Nintendo; I think they're a great company with some great brands, and they've been tremendously innovative.

That said, I have trouble imagining a great gaming experience that involves constantly looking down to focus on the controller and then looking back up to focus on the TV. I can see it working for a multiplayer strategy game where you want to keep some data hidden from the other player, but for arcade-type games (i.e., most of the games that Nintendo produces), I have trouble seeing the value. But, I leave it to Nintendo to make it work. I have a Wii, and most of the best games for that platform are made by Nintendo; other developers just don't seem to get the Wiimote.

And personally, I think that the controller should have been their next portable. Tablets are all the rage right now, and a standalone gaming tablet with physical gamer controls would have been killer.

Games I'm interested in, same as any other console. They haven't shown much in that regard yet.

More specific to Nintendo though, not as much forcing in of whatever gimmick the system has, in this case the GamePad. For me, the Wii suffered from trying to cram waggle in where a button press (or the option for a button press) could just as well have been there. I doubt I'm the only one, as some games such as DKC Returns actually had Classic Controller support hacked in.

...Above all don't listen to hardcore gamers on message boards demanding HD graphics. If it's only to recieve late PS3/360 ports they won't be buying it anyway.

B.S., tell that to all the people who bought PS3's as Blu-Ray players. Or the people who use their 360's for video streaming more than playing games. There's plenty of reasons to buy a console for other things than games.

Also, all us "hardcore gamers on message boards" might in fact buy an HD Wii if they offer compelling games that perform (look, sound) as good as the competition. Why is that such a bad thing? People act like because we demand higher resolution and better sound we're somehow not "real gamers" and wouldn't buy a Wii. Look at the Dolphin, etc. PC emulators to see how awesome Wii games can look. You are correct though: I won't buy a Wii U if all we're getting are 360/PS3 ports. Keep the games original, keep them compelling (and keep them competitive performance-wise), and the hardcore will buy them. After all the hardcore are who buy all the Zelda, Mario, and non-casual games on the Wii. Those games are the definition of hardcore gaming. Plants Versus Zombies, Wii Fit, Wii Sports, etc. are not.

Let me preface this by saying I was, for a long time, a very big Nintendo fan. In fact, the NES and SNES were my two favorite systems and I consider the era of the SNES the "golden age" of video games (I miss 16-bit gaming). In addition to the NES and SNES, I've also owned the N64, the original Game Boy, and the Wii... I even picked up the failed "Virtual Boy" from Blockbuster for $30 when they were getting rid of all of their units -- does anybody else remember that?

Having said that, the Wii left nothing but a bad taste in my mouth. First of all, it was way too hard to find for way too long. I still believe to this day that Nintendo intentionally underproduced it as a way to generate hype and the illusion that it was the most desired product on the planet. I don't buy the "demand was so great that they couldn't produce enough" argument because demand for the new iPhone every year far exceeds the demand that existed for the original Wii and Apple seems to be able to do a reasonably good job of keeping up with it. At most it might take a few weeks to get one if you don't get one from the initial batch but it took me OVER A YEAR to find a Wii in-stock at a store. This is for a system that was already using last year's technology so it's not like it was using new components that were difficult to produce.

After spending all that time looking for one, I can't begin to describe how let down I have been by this system. The graphics were absolutely atrocious... it was pathetic that in an era when HDTV's were already nearly ubiquitous Nintendo would release a system that could do, at best, 480p -- and that was only if you sprung the extra money for the component video cable. If you didn't, you were stuck at 480i which was even worse. It also had none of the big third-party titles that were available on the other systems. I quickly realized that the "motion controls" were severely inadequate and nothing more than a gimmick -- something Nintendo even seemed to admit when they later released their "more sensitive" Wii Plus remotes that you had to shell out even more money for.

For the past four years, the Wii has sat on the shelf beneath my television collecting dust. In case you can't tell, I will not be buying a Wii U. Nintendo, for me, failed and failed hard with the Wii. It has been the biggest disappointment of a video game console that I have ever experienced in my life, going all the way back to the days of the Atari 2600... and that's really saying something considering I also owned a Sega Saturn and a Dreamcast at one point.

EDIT: One point I forgot to make is that Nintendo's "online" experience with the Wii was an absolute joke. "Friend codes" that are basically super long hexadecimal MAC addresses... are you kidding me? From what I've read and hear about the Wii U, there still will be no compelling online multiplayer experience from Nintendo. Another reason to avoid the system if you do any online gaming at all from your consoles.

...It has been the biggest disappointment of a video game console that I have ever experienced in my life, going all the way back to the days of the Atari 2600... and that's really saying something considering I also owned a Sega Saturn and a Dreamcast at one point...

While I agree with your post in general I would say that the Dreamcast at least was far from a disappointment. Sega sucked for giving up on it so soon but man in the time it was around there were so many good games released for it that it still got every day play from me up until I sold my older systems 2 years ago. It was an amazing system and a hell of a way for Sega to go out. I guess though technically yes it was a disappointment but not because of itself. Sega just lost the will to stay in the hardware fight. Shame too, if they had been a bit smarter with the system I think it could have had one of the best gaming libraries in history.

While I agree with your post in general I would say that the Dreamcast at least was far from a disappointment.

I actually quite enjoyed the Dreamcast and even the Saturn. I just mentioned them because they have a reputation of being "disappointments."

Yeah you're right. Shame too because so many people missed out on so many good games. The system not only had great games but was competitive technically with systems released later. Not equal of course but in a much better position to compete versus the Wii. That's why I didn't get into the Wii. There were good games, of course. It's Nintendo. It's just I couldn't stand looking at them when there was competition around that blew it away graphically and had their own great games. That's to me the difference between the Dreamcast and the Wii. Heck I loved the Saturn too. It's a top five system for me, easily. It had so many great games as well (especially if you imported) it was mind boggling Sega managed to eff it up so bad. Yes it was a mess and hard to code for but still, it was competitive and never should have suffered the fate it suffered. I guess though if it had done well we might not have ever received the Dreamcast as we knew it so there's some possible upsides to that situation.

When their third party support isn't a bunch of games that came out last year, make motion an option instead of a requirement (seriously, it ruined Skyward Sword for me), and have a bunch of games I want. I'm not buying at launch but I'm not ruling the system out entirely.

I'll likely grab it once I've had a chance to play it and have a few games I know I want to buy. Also, the virtual console is a big deal to me so being able to transfer them from my Wii to the WiiU is something I need more details on.